Police Need Warrant for GPS Tracking, Court Says

(CN) – Police cannot a track a suspect’s vehicle with a global positioning system (GPS) device without obtaining a warrant, the New York Court of Appeals ruled.

Latham police were investigating a series of burglaries when they attached a GPS device to the bumper of a suspect’s van. The police used the information from the van to charge the Scott Weaver with burglaries at a K-Mart and a local meat market. In order to obtain this information, the police attached the device at night, and they returned on a different night to change the batteries. Weaver was acquitted of the meat market burglary but convicted of the K-Mart crime. Weaver appealed his conviction, claiming that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the placement of the GPS. The appellate division had rejected Weaver’s appeal, claiming that a GPS is akin to a police officer tailing a vehicle. Judge Lippman overturned the decision, noting that a GPS offers police the equivalent of “a million police officers with cameras on every street lamp.” “The great popularity of GPS technology,” Lippman added, “may not be taken simply as a massive, undifferentiated concession of personal privacy to agents of the state.” Lippman stated that the decision applied to the New York Constitution, as the U.S. Supreme Court as not made a similar ruling regarding federal law. Lippman ordered a new trial with the GPS evidence suppressed. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) praised the court’s decision. “Placing a GPS device on a car is like allowing an invisible police officer to ride in the back seat,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the NYCLU.